Tv, all weekend, every weekend on cspan3. Up next on American History tv douglas wrinkly, author of the wilderness warrior recounts Theodore Roosevelts time in the west and how his experience there shaped his presidency. We also hear about roosevelts charge of San Juan Hill in the spanishamerican war and how his conservation efforts led to the protection of over 150 thousand acres 150 million acres of american land. This is about two hours. Doug good evening. It is an honor to be here at the New York Historical society and try to shed some light on one of my heroes, Theodore Roosevelt, and why hes considered a great leader. When the schwartzes wanted to make this series go, they really want us to focus on leadership qualities. And im telling you theres no president quite like t. R. To get to talk about that. I wanted to begin thinking about roosevelt being new york citys president. Being born here in 1858. Because in his household growing up in new york, he had a father who was a dutch knickerbocker here from new york, and a mother, the bullock family, she came from georgia. I told you 1858. You all know something about history. The civil war is upon us. And in the roosevelt family, you had a feud. A mother who loved robert e. Lee and a father who loved grant. Young t. R. Decided to love the t. R. Decided to love the west instead. And as ill talk about some of his formative years in the dakota territory, it will become clear what the west meant in building his leadership skills. But if i focus for a minute on 1858, one year after he was born, 1859, was darwins on the origins of species. And that book is a revolution and it really hit the roosevelt family very hard. Theodore roosevelts father was one of the founders of the institute next door, the American Museum of Natural History. But he had an uncle, Robert Barnwell roosevelt, who was audubon of the civil war era. And went on to write books like fishing on lake superior, a book on the water fowl of florida. Uncle rob, his fathers brother, was an ardent darwinian. In fact, he wrote seminal things about eels and frogs, ran for congress, uncle robert roosevelt, from new york to save the shad, because the shad were being outfished fished out of the hudson river and the east river. And so this darwinian infusion becomes very important because its one of the reasons Young Theodore roosevelt wants to be a naturalist, he ends up going to harvard, class of 1876 graduates really as wanting to be a biologist or a wildlife biologist. But the darwinism is a strand in t. R. s leadership. And it connects, i think, with learning about darwin when hes young. An exact quote of Theodore Roosevelt was, i sat at the feet of darwin and huxley growing up. And that revolution of what it meant by the evolution of man. Theres even one of the first leaving we have of t. R. That he wrote was showing like, im evolving from an ape and my brothers evolving from a stork, my cousins from a sparrow, whatever. So you see that breakdown. Even writes darwins theory of evolution in his boyhood hand on top, t. R. , so, you know, hes thinking about this a lot. And it coincides with him being sick. With him having asthma. Ive always identified. I had asthma as a boy so Theodore Roosevelts struggles with asthma has always been very meaningful to me. In new york, he could not breathe here in the city. The pollution was so thick. He was sick all the time. And he started finding some wellness the further up the river he got. When he got to the catskills and more specifically to the adirondacks, he felt then that nature had a curative quality to him. And it got him more and more interested in being a flora and fauna naturalist. Add to that mix his early penchant for hunting which develops into a life long obsession. And boy, whats colder in darwin terms than not just Species Survival but when you get shot and youre dead. And youd go to the carcass, all that life and then youre gone. From that hunting experience and he did a lot of great taxidermy, Theodore Roosevelt, when he was a boy, did his teacher was John James Audubons taxidermy specialist and learned how to do small animals with taxidermy and all. These combinations then of hunting and darwin and trying to conquer illness, in those days with asthma, they would prescribe smoking cigarettes believe it or not. And so, you know then his father, at a famous moment when he goes up to maine, he gets beat up by some boys, not badly, but being roughed up and mocked as an effete urban kid, his father said, youre going to develop into a manly person. You have young t. R. Having weights. His father gets him weights and he starts weightlifting. By the time you go to harvard you see photos of Theodore Roosevelt when hes at cambridge, no shirt on looking all buff because hes been making himself strong. Hes willing it. But willing it through physical exertion as well as intellectual exertion. And those combos are coming to him, you know. Those strains are kind of coming together by the time hes at harvard. Add to this, i consider myself a president ial historian. I would tell you i think Theodore Roosevelt had the best father. He was incredibly honest man pious. Big new york city socialite, philanthropist, religious. And t. R. , his greatest quality is honesty. You talk about what makes him a great leader, he always told the truth. He believed in a code of valor and honor, and in the belief that you had to do, belief in action, and being a doer. When he goes to harvard, his first book, its really a pamphlet, he publishes, its called the summer birds of the adirondacks. He then goes and wants to climb to the tallest mountain in maine because thoreau had climbed the mountain and is reading about thoreaus wanderings there. He wants to hunt a moose, but hes bragging that im as tough now he was with ardent outdoors people. And he wanted to be as tough as those men. And yet he also can operate in nonmasculine, more social society kind of culture, too. You see them both forming his character. And he also loved, early on, the navy. Im mentioning some about conservation and hunting and naturalists, but the navy was his great love. And he writes in 1882 that naval war of 1812, Amazing Stories hes writing about in those two books. It was taught at the Naval Academy forever and the naval war college, its still the classic. He was writing this as a young man, this big twovolume thing on the war of 1812. And if you really read that youll see how much he loves american the way america won up the british, the way Oliver Hazard Perry in erie pennsylvania, was able to build a fleet and take over the ohio islands against the british. And a kind of feeling of american exceptionalism is exuding him as a young man. He defines himself not just as a darwinian but also as a mohanian, named after Alfred Thayer mohan, who believed that great power countries in the world, real politik, countries that mattered, japan and britain in particular, knew how to take care of their shore lines, their Homeland Security in todays parlance. That meaning roosevelt gets from reading mohans influence of sea power, that weve got to have a navy on both coasts, hence you get to the panama canal when hes president and his focusing on building that shortcut that we can protect ourself ourselves. You dont have to have the navy go all the way down south america and up, we had that shortcut. Incidentally, now as i speak to you, the panama canals being doubled in size and has continued to be very important to americas navy, but also american shipping. But once he gets beyond being the scholar of the navy and hunting and all, of course he runs here in new york, becomes a legislator in albany. And he has that hairraising harrowing moment. Hes a reformer. He wants to go after because of his honesty he wants to go after corruption his whole life. Hes a prosecutor. His belief in leadership is being a prosecutor. The greatest thing to know about Theodore Roosevelt is he woke up every day wanting to get a bad guy. Its why he became a new york Police Commissioner. Its why when he was in dakota territory he became a sheriff. He met he was not a defense attorney type. And in the but hes in albany trying to become a reformer, going after corruption, and he famously, and im sure most of you know the story, gets called in by his brother because his mother is very sick with brights disease, her kidneys are failing. And his wife, alice, is in labor with his child who becomes aleth longworth roosevelt, great washington, d. C. Wit and philanthropist, and a very special daughter he had. But that same day, in february when he was just a young politician here in new york, on valentines day, his mother dies on one floor. And his wife dies on another in the same building. And one of the more moving documents ive seen is when he puts an x into his diary and says, the life has gone out of my life forever. He had a bout of huge amounts of depression. Depression was part of the roosevelt family. His brother was an alcoholic dealt with his depression by drinking and some forms of opiates. T. R. Was almost a teetotaller. He barely would touch any alcohol in his life. In fact, he sued once when somebody said he drank because he thought it was libel. But he drank about a gallon of coffee a day, so hes very caffeinated. But what happened was when he put that x in and left his baby daughter here in new york, his sister said to theodore, go out west. He always felt this western vector tug. The most further west hes gone and it is the real west, he went with his brother grouse hunting in the most western counties of iowa. And hed also been in the red river valley there on the border of north dakota and minnesota. But he didnt really get to see that wild west. And why is he so inflamed with the west . Well, if i said the civil war to you was in the 1860s, by the 1870s the boys magazines and science magazines were showing photographs of the hayden expedition of 1871 that had gone to yellowstone. All these photographs of, you know, of crater lake in oregon or the red rock sliprock canyons of utah, theyre starting to be photographed and seen. And you also had a Geological Survey charting and mapping the west because there were gold in them thar hills. Famously in dakota, south dakota dakota, the custer period, battle of little big horn, people coming to the hills for gold. T. R. Had an insight. Everybody about topography and geographical surveys of the west put there was no biological survey. T. R. s whole life, he wanted to know what grasses grow in every county, what kind of insects what sort of fish, what type of bear. And he got in very big darwinian debates over species. He was what they called a lumper. For example, he thought there were maybe five species of bear. And a man named dr. C. Hart dr. C. Hart miriam, a great mammalologist, said there are about 12 types of bear, by studying snout differences. They had a famous debate of the lumper versus the splitters. T. R. Did not like too many species because he wanted the public to know them all. He thought if you have too many, nobody will know, it becomes a specialist thing, so you have to reduce. It was a very interesting argument. Well, he slaughtered miriam, t. R. , he just killed Theodore Roosevelt at the cosmos club debate on this. Yet he lost the debate in the end because miriam went out to the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State and low and behold found the biggest elk known to man, this giant elk that lived up there. New species, in miriams mind. And he wrote, dear theodore, i found a new elk and would like to name it after you but i know you dont like all these subspecies categories. He said, on this case youre right, that is a new one. Hence you have the Roosevelt Elk today. When we talk about Theodore Roosevelts western vector, why when that train happened on valentines day the Northern Pacific railroad here in new york, you could take the train across the plains. You actually get to minnesota, then youd cut across whats north dakota, montana. So a link to puget sound and to duluth and the great lakes and then to new york. He got off in madora, north dakota, and began what he called his years in the wilderness. Theres a biblical connotation in that, years in the wilderness, wandering the desert or something. But he really did kind of Wander Around the dakota territory in montana. Yes, he wrote articles about big hunting for grizzly and the big horns of wyoming. And yes, he wrote about killing a buffalo and eating its hump and tongue and having the head as a trophy. From killing that bison, he went on to create the American Bison society to save them. And he went on to, as president , rip out fixtures in the white house that were of african species, lions and the like, and instead had bison put on them. Also commissioned the buffalo nickel you hear about. So he fell very in love with that what used to be 60 million bison on the great plains. But these years in the dakota, hes a cowboy rancher, hes got two brands, the maltese cross and the elk horn. And he says, i never could have been president , never could have been a leader, without my time in north dakota. Well, they milk that for everything its worth in north dakota today. Youll see it, if you go up to Theodore RooseveltNational Park in the badlands where the whole town has been saved. But what he meant was, i was raised well here in new york. I had money. But when i went out to dakota, i i got to live with hardscrabble, rough and ready people, what he considered the american archtype. Archetype. And he liked what he saw, men of selfreliance. People that a blizzard would occur and everybody would pull together in the community. But he liked the type of men that our western states were developing, because i dont want to say he mythologized the cowboy because he was much more sophisticated than that. He became an ethnographer for cowboy culture. The president got john lomax funding from france to do studies at the university of texas on cowboy culture because he thought cowboys were knights of king arthur. So that their ballads and songs and doggerel and all had cultural importance to us in the United States. But that ability that he could hang in there with those men. They called him four eyes at first, but he can hang in there. They all became impressed with his leadership because he never quit. There was no quit in t. R. He would go on looking for that buffalo going day after day, rain, he just wouldnt stop. Yet he was not a good hunter. He was a terrible shot. He later got blind in one eye from getting hit in the eye in a boxing match. He had awful eyesight but that indomitable, noquit spirit that he had melding there in north dakota. He comes back later, he gets married to edith, they have a wonderful marriage. There are no affairs in Theodore Roosevelts life. They are very, very loyal. An affair would be lying, and i honestly tell you, Theodore Roosevelt doesnt lie. Thats his big thing in life to admire. But he comes here as Police Commissioner and does all sorts of things in new york as a leader, of getting rid of crime. He gets telephones set up for the first time in police stations so people could coordinate. He modernizes it a lot. He would walk the beat to go see things, talk to hustlers or prostitutes, gamblers, swindlers, actually bust in the houses to arrest people. Hes showing this fearlessness. And the fearlessness comes because of that darwinian side the sense of hunting, the deaths he just had. And he overcomes his depression with whats called exuberance. It is a form of manic depression, exuberance. I didnt quite understand this before i studied t. R. , but i talked to dr. Kay jamison whos at Johns Hopkins in psychiatry. And t. R. s model for the form of manic depression is called exuberance. Which is, instead of drinking or getting you take your depression and everything becomes positive. Its beyond its like the power of positive thinking of of Norman Vincent peale on steroids. If t. R. Were here with you tonight, his whole thing would be, bully, what a great its wonderful to be here, this is fantastic, you look great on and on and on. If you look at him hes doing it all the time. You would think its just a political act. And it may have what it is, a coping, its the way he coped with life. He could not turn himself off. The problem with that kind of exuberance, he was a chronic insomniac. And could never shut himself off. That gallon of coffee didnt help either. But he would do a lot of arduous hiking and things to kind of wear himself down mentally and physically. Because he couldnt turn himself off. So the exuberance allowed him to write 35 books. The exuberance allowed him to do 150,000 letters. The exuberance allowed him to be a Police Commissioner and cowboy and write on the war of 1812 and write three hunting books about the dakota, one illustrated by frederick remington. He could be a great birder and be a great he did all of that. And the most crowded life imaginable. He only lived to be 60 because of that exuberance. But the problem with exuberance is heart attacks, heart disease, short life. Today, a doctor would give you tell you to take ambien every night and go to the caribbean for rest. Thats seriously you need to relax and he couldnt. But he brought those qualities more and more into the public sphere. And after being in the new york Police Commissioners, you all know he famously became an assistant secretary of the navy. And then we have the spanishamerican war with William Mckinley. And this is right up t. R. s alley, this war. Hes a great believer in the Monroe Doctrine and this is americas hemisphere. He once very much bemoaned that canada wasnt incorporated into the United States, it bothered him, as an expansionist and as a Monroe Doctrine person. But in the spanishamerican war, assistant secretary of the navy, he felt he could not morally, be for the war against spain yet be deskbound. How can you ask somebody to go fight for you when people might die . So he quits assistant secretary of the navy post under William Mckinley and goes first to san antonio, and thats where the rough riders are born. He always symbolically picks things. One book t. R. Never wrote that he wanted to write was the history of the texas republic, what happened at the alamo. But the hotel manger, which is still there in san antonio, you can go and you can see where t. R. Recruited his volunteers to get the rough riders on the dusty fair grounds of san antonio to go east to tampa and then to go into cuba and the spanishamerican war. Another aspect of t. R. Which comes in, it will all make sense, is that what edwin o. Wilson, our great naturalist at harvard, talks about some people being biophyllic, which means some people in the audience have to have an animal by them. Cats, dogs, plants, botany. You cant live without things like that around you. Other people, i dont need dogs, i dont need cats, theyre a hassle. They dont have that. T. R. Was again an exaggerated case of needing other animals around him. At any given time he had 20, 30 pets, even more if you include ones of his children. In the white house, when he was president , he had a badger named josiah, a baby badger he would feed. A colonial animal, he raced it when he was young, picked it up in kansas, it would go attack somebody if it didnt know you. There are pictures of the roosevelt children holding the badger, you know. But when the badger met somebody he didnt like, it would go and bite them. They had to get it out of the white house and it ended up living in sagamore hill, its buried in the sagamore hill property, josiah the badger. The emperor of ethiopia gave him a hyena. He had a horse, algonquin, that would ride the white house elevator. It used to be called the executive mansion. Theodore roosevelt is the one that named it the white house. He had a dog named skip that couldnt bark but climbed trees would sit on his lap. Parrots, snakes, turtles pockets full of nuts to feed squirrels on the white house lawn. While hes president he wrote a book about the birds of washington, d. C. , which was a definitive kind of ornithological checklist while he was president. The reason i mention it in this part of my lecture is during the spanishamerican war, beyond the famous rough riders, from the territories of new mexico and arizona and oklahoma and from ivy league friends, they all mixed together in this volunteer rough riders club, the name taken from buffalo bill. But he had three mascots, a cougar, a golden eagle, and a dog. A little puppy. And they stayed with the rough riders through the spanishamerican war. And today in the Oval Office Barack obamas desk, there is a bust called the bronco busters that remington did that was given to t. R. At matauk here in new york, long island, after the spanishamerican war when he was quarantined for yellow fever and all the pets are with him, the three mascots, when he gets the famous statue from remington. If you get to the spanishamerican war, you see the real leadership of t. R. It is the only time we know he ever cursed was when horses would get water in their faces and he would start using swear words. Because hed you know, animal torture of the water coming on them. When they had to bring animals to shore there. He called it his crowded hour. On july 1, 1898, he became the great hero of kettle hill, or San Juan Hill, as it is more famously known. Bill clinton posthumously gave him the medal of honor for what he did there and led, and the name Theodore Roosevelt became a household name, along with admiral dewy, out of the spanishamerican war. He became a military folk hero out of the spanishamerican war, because he was indomitable and all the men said he showed no fear, total courage. Again, im not worried. If the bullets meant for me, i will die. Thats the way it goes in life. And so that lack of fear gets noticed by people. You know, leadership quality. If the colonels not afraid were not afraid. But he comes back. He runs as a hero for the Republican Party as a reformer becomes governor of new york. And again, as governor, becomes a reformist. He talks about trust busting going after monopolies, weeding out corruption. All of this is seminal to him, so much so that a lot of the Business Class in new york werent keen on governor roosevelt. They thought he was a cowboy and kooky. They were finding a way to get him out of albany. And they degraded him in a sense by saying, look, the only thing youll do is the vice presidency, and nobody wants that job. But his egos so big hell take it. And they thought they got him out of the way, and lo and behold, as you know in buffalo after t. R. Ran for Vice President , mckinley wins and t. R. s now Vice President. In 1901, september 6th, buffalo, mckinley dies and Theodore Roosevelt becomes president. Mckinley murdered by an anarchist. Now when mark hannah, head of the Republican Party, said that damn cowboy is president , what are we going to do . And t. R. , true to form, is his own man. He does things the way he wants to do it. He immediately makes conservation a huge part of his presidency, saves over 234 million acres of wild america using all sorts of mechanisms. Mainly what you hear about president obama and executive orders now, t. R. s view of executive orders was, to do them a lot, because if lincoln could liberate the slaves with an executive order, he could save the grand canyon with an executive order. And in fact, he did just that. He went all over the country and used the Antiquities Act of 1906, which gave him executive power, for the word science, to save places for science. So it could be, you know, 60 acres for a paleontologist to study bones found in the west or a strange natural feature. But he goes with his rough riders to the grand canyon stands on the lip of the canyon, looks out over the abyss and says, do not touch it, god has made it, you only mar it, leave the grand canyon alone well, the senate wants to mine it for zinc, asbestos, and copper. And t. R. Uses this Antiquities Act and saves 600,000 acres of the grand canyon. When asked, this is not science, this is a land grab. Roosevelt said, well, show me a better example of studying erosion at work for science. And he went around and saved the redwood trees, muir woods out in california, on and on, devils tower, using these executive power. He also created five National Parks taking them through congress, which you have to do for that designation. But he created 51 federal bird reservations with executive order, giving birth to what we call u. S. Fish and wildlife today, 500 wildlife refuges. Because 100 years ago, every woman here tonight would have come wearing a hat with a dead bird or ornamental feather on it. And they were a mafia in new york city that was a feather mafia that would go down to places and youd gun down all the birds on their rookeries pluck their exotic feathers, and steal the eggs and you were starting to get extinction of species. And as somebody was interested in darwin and all the species, this could not be. So he found out a particular place called Pelican Island off of vero beach on the atlantic, indian river country. He said, what will stop me from declaring this whole area a federal bird refuge . And the lawyers said, well nothing. I so declare it he put four wardens down in florida and two of these usda, United States department of agriculture, wardens were murdered, pointblank, shot dead in the feather wars of florida. Try telling florida, not that long after the civil war, that youre going to jail for shooting egrets and heron. It didnt go well, that kind of law. T. R. Did these all over the place. Thats one part of his activist conservation leadership coming in, making people think about being good Land Stewards fighting for reforestation. The big navy part of his leadership as president comes bursting clear with the great white fleet he builds. He wants our navy to be the best in the world as a mohanan, he wants us to be able to compete with japan or with britain or any great navy in the world and he does it. We build it. Places start humming with ship manufacturing, whether its groten or newport news. He takes the great white fleet and moves them right into the pacific and points right and shows off to Asian Countries look at what weve got. We are a great big navy. So hes beloved in naval history. If you go to the Naval Academy hes like the alltime naval president hero, is Theodore Roosevelt, on the Monroe Doctrine, which i mentioned, spanishamerican war and all. Theodore roosevelt in 1905, he puts the roosevelt corollary in the Monroe Doctrine. Its Theodore Roosevelt in 1905 that puts the roosevelt corollary to the Monroe Doctrine which was after all written by John Quincy Adams and james monroe, the president telling europeans dont mess with our hemisphere or you are going to get american your face. Did you hear with the europeans thought of that . They laughed. What is america going to do to us . Your hemisphere . We had no navy to defend it. By 1904 we tell them that the roosevelt corollary is that the Monroe Doctrine is alive. Its a very big militaristic Foreign Policy approach. Yet Theodore Roosevelt wins the Nobel Peace Prize for mediating the russojapanese war. He was very enamored with the Japanese Culture and the japanese people. The food, art, everything. But he brokered that, won a Nobel Peace Prize. And for somebody who talked a very militaristic game, from 1901 to 1909 in his presidency we never went to war. Hes a peacetime president. And a Nobel Peace Prize winner. But his name is associated with war because he fought in the spanish american war, but mainly because he talked about building up our armed forces. He liked big navy and big forest. And he stuck by that principle. And then the panama canal situation, which we dont have time to get into all. But basically its created in new york, the country of panama. Waldorf astoria, lets get a flag to build this canal in what is today panama. People said to Theodore Roosevelt, you stole panama. From colombia. And he said, i never stole it, i built it. I built the panama canal. And it was an engineering marvel. The great historian David Mccullough and many others have written about it. Combating malaria and how much machinery was needed to accomplish that. All in the name of america and Monroe Doctrine, supremacy in the hemisphere, and our big navy, and be able to protect our borders. Theodore roosevelt was a great leader as president because he knew how to manipulate the press. And he would tell every reporter he saw, your article was the best thing ive ever read because he knew how the egos of writers and all they wanted to do you cant hate a president , just write your stuff and lined it. And also he was a genius with cartoonists. He would bring cartoonists with him everywhere. And in fact, one of the bits of bravery in leadership of t. R. Was right when he came into the white house, he invited booker t. Washington to dinner. And this was scandalous. The south was up in arms and an africanamerican not only was sitting in the white house dining with the president , but had his legs next to a white woman, edith, the first ladys legs. And scathing, racist, bigotry if you read the newspapers coming out of mississippi. So you know what t. R. Does . He decides hes going to go back to vardman, governor vardman of mississippi, whos calling roosevelt every ugly racial name in the book, and he went hunting in vardmans backyard with holt collier, an africanamerican hunt guide. Today theres a Holt Collier National Wildlife Refuge in the mississippi delta. And this is the scene where a woman here in brooklyn, ruth mccomb i believe it is, she ended up becoming very famous and made a lot of money and ill tell you why in a minute. Theyre down there in mississippi. And the big thing was the south was lynching africanamericans. And fdr wanted federal antilynching laws and the south didnt want federal antilynching laws. So t. R. Went there on the hunt but also to promote and sell these the antilynching laws. So a cartoonist from the washington post, clifford barryman, drew a cartoon showing a black bear but it looked awful like an africanamerican with a rope around its neck. And it showed roosevelt saying drawing the line in mississippi. Because a real bear had been caught and roped by holt collier, and t. R. Would not shoot it because that wasnt fair hunt conservation practice. So the cartoon had a double meaning. Drawing the line in mississippi. Were not slob hunters. Were not going to kill a trapped animal. And were against lynching. The cartoon went, in todays parlance, viral. And ruth here in brooklyn wrote him a letter, dear mr. President , i would like to make a toy, a bear toy named after you, teddy bear. And he got pack to her and said, madam, you may, but i dont think anybody cares. Well, its the most ubiquitous toy in world history, still is the teddy bear. Do you know how many politicians would die to have their symbol to be a childs toy . People going, oh, at train stations, kids with their teddy bears. I mean, politicians dream of such glory. In fact, if you think its an easy act, William Howard taft, his successor, wanting to bottle up some of the roosevelt magic ended up creating the billy possum toy. A stuffed possum. None of you know what it looks like. Im not even sure you can get one on ebay but maybe. But it went nowhere. Nobody wanted a beadyeyed possum stuffed toy for starters. But just something about roosevelts man and i can whatever he took on and his ability to communicate. His bravery as a leader is just extraordinary in everything he does. Even to the point he runs in 1904 and gets reelected by a landslide. And he could have run again in 1908 and he said, nope, im not going to run. Because president s okay, but the real people i want to be associated with are explorers. That he thought that that that was a higher thing to be than president in some ways. He later regretted this, we think. Or were sure. But he quit right in the middle of it. 48 hours before he left he signed an executive order saving mt. Olympus in Washington State where all those Roosevelt Elk were. Still now olympic National Park out there. And then he went to africa for the smithsonian and got lost in the wild in the smithsonian. He loved to get lost in the wilderness. He found strength in that. Living against the elements. I mentioned him in the dakotas in the wilderness years. But when mckinley was shot, they couldnt find Theodore Roosevelt, he was on top of mt. Marcie in new york, lost in the wild. And now as expresident , nobody knows where roosevelt is in the bush. Not only did he collect a lot of species for the smithsonian as a hunter, collector, man of science. But he also wrote a quite marvelous twovolume inventory of the species of africa. While he was there, his handchosen successor, William Howard taft, a man he admired greatly. I know you all are aware, doris kearns good win wrote a bestselling book largely on this. But taft gets the nod, t. R. Wants him to be the successor, hes the handpicked guy for t. R. And taft ends up firing gifford pincho, the chief forester. And somebody who roosevelt helped build 150 National Forests with. Pincho, republican for pennsylvania, gets fired. Roosevelts very angry about it. Comes back. And defies everybody and runs as a republican nominee, feels hes being cheated at it by the Republican Party thats now being owned by corporations and banks and the like. And he breaks, in 1912, and runs the most successful thirdparty run in American History. The bull moose party. Named after an animal. Youve got to get back to the animal bit. The Progressive Party 1912. And at that point he wants to destroy taft. If youre an enemy of t. R. , its not enough to win. You have to destroy your opponent. And he went after taft and destroyed the modern Republican Party at that time. He came in second, allowing Woodrow Wilson to come in first, t. R. Second, taft a lonely third. But something more important happened in 1912 than him coming in second and letting wilson be president. In his biography, when he went to milwaukee and walking like i just walked, an anarchist pulled out a gun and shot him and t. R. s bleeding. Stands there with blood coming out and says, it will take more than a bullet to kill a bull moose and goes on hecklecturing. At that moment, what is that . Some people say its nuts. Some people call it courage. Some people, its just true grit. But what it becomes is he becomes a greater folk hero. Maybe like paul bunyan or Davey Crockett. He had founded the boone and crockett club, Davey Crockett and daniel boone. He became a specie of folklore. Not just we dont just think of him as a president. He was nursed by jane adams who would win a nobel prize herself as a social worker from hole house in chicago. The whole left at that time, progressives got behind t. R. In 12. Once he loses that he got a little depressed. Wilsons in and he goes for another brutal expedition. This time to south america, to the amazon, to brazil, traveling down a river over 600 miles, river of no return. And shows amazing fortitude. But also perhaps immaturity by even going. He said, its my last chance to be a boy. But he ended up trying to unlock a couple of boats and cut his leg. And that open wound caused him to get infection. And he developed a malaria of some kind, fever, almost died down this. Was actually asked to be left to die. Not even just a man in his 50s at this point. Comes back. And everybody here in new york said he was never the same. He was constantly having leg problems, constantly his vitality had largely evaporated. And it evaporates more when he has a son killed in the first world war. Theodore roosevelt was an early and Ardent Supporter of going in and taking it to the hun kaisers germany. He was angry at wood row wilson for being lackadaisical of getting American Intervention into what we call the great war, today we call world war i. In fact, t. R. Wanted to lead a group of men, his rough riders to, if you like, and wilson said, no way. He was very depressed that he couldnt go over there and fight and serve. His son had that same Theodore Roosevelt jr. I think i dont all know had that same ardor and ended up dying in the battle of normandy and dday in world war ii at 56 years old. The oldest man to die at dday was Theodore Roosevelts son. He dies 1919. Buried here in new york at oyster bay. Sagamore relevanthill, if you havent gone, go. Its one of the great homes. Today historians pick him fourth, the most important president after abraham lincoln, george washington, franklin roosevelt, and t. R. For a peacetime president and not a president Like Washington was, our first, its quite a coveted spot. But his life brings out more and more books constantly. And hes one of the probably the most favorite perpendicular ive ever got an opportunity to study and write about. Thank you. [applause] now, im going to be taking questions from the audience if youd like to ask a question please approach one of the two standing mikes in the aisle. If youd like to ask a question please approach one of the two standing mikes in the aisle. If youd like to ask a question please approach one of the two standing mikes in the aisle. Before asking your question please tell us your name and out of respect for other people waiting their turn please ask just one question. We have two Staff Members on hand if any of you need any assistance. Theres one there and one there. And well start with you, sir. Im jim pasinich, im a docent here. I thought one of the great political moves of Teddy Roosevelt was his relationship with j. P. Morgan. One of the First Companies that he curtailed was the Northern Railroad that was owned by morgan. I think it was in 02 or 03. In 08 he asks morgan to help bail out the federal government. And he does that. Can you talk a little bit about that relationship and how that worked . Well, two points. On railroads, roosevelt always wanted to lower fees on the railroads. But on morgan, very complicated and interesting relationship. But theres one moment when t. R. s attorney general tells morgan and morgan was very upset that, my Administration Knows no ticker tape. Meaning wall street. Because morgan was saying, if you do this its going to affect the finances of america and roosevelts guy got back and said, i know no i dont follow i dont make judgments on your financial ticker tape. So its a wonderful theres a wonderful amount of literature on there, the adversarial relationship with the two. Yet in many ways a mutual respect. In the end. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. You did quite Extensive Research on the roosevelts. Robert sadler. Would you unidentified speaker say in your research that i mean in your opinion, if we did not elect Teddy Roosevelt, who will never build panama canal or the panama canal would never be built, period, unless you think that somebody else could do that job. I mean, were doing 80 years building one little subway line on second avenue. Well, of course, he comes in as i mentioned in 1901. We didnt elect him as president. He came in, was our youngest president at 42 years of age. And was i dont know if it could have gotten built without either Theodore Roosevelt or somebody that was that bullheaded and persist tant to have done it. But we always get worried as historians about what if. I got to edit Ronald Reagans diaries called the reagan diaries. Nancy reagan had given it diaries, and nancy reagan had given it to me to edit with one stipulation, never tell people what my husband would have done. Because people are very predictable and you never know. History unfolds the way thank you unfolds. Because one doesnt want to say it would never have gotten built, the panama canal, without Theodore Roosevelt but certainly for better or for worse many people in latin america thought it was an ugly sign of american imperialism and colonialism. There are other people who see it as a model of candoism like going to the moon. So it depends on how you fall down on it. But its fair to call him the father of the panama canal because of the amount of manic energy and determination he put into that project. Good evening, professor. Dan harrison. When he died in january 1919 roosevelt was being talked about as a putative candidate for the republican nomination in 1920. Notwithstanding his frail health and notwithstanding historians antipathy toward what if questions, what is the sense of the hinktal community on how things might have evolved in the postwar period had t. R. Been nominated and elected in 1920 instead of the rather nondescript man who was elected. Very good question. And its actually something i left out of my remarks. Im glad you raised it. He was the frontrunner for the gop in 1920. And we think he would have gone for it, meaning he would have run and probably would have gotten elected president of the United States. Its hard to imagine again its hard to imagine harding could have taken on Theodore Roosevelt, who was growing in stature. People he got a little tired, some of t. R. , from the scene but after wilson and after the war and many people were looking back with a little more rosetinted glasses at t. R. , so he very well could have gotten elected and theres all indications he would have wanted to go for it. That would have made the 20s quite different because you would have had a progressive reformer republican claiming to be part of the party of lincoln instead of the Harding Coolidge hoover kind of corporate republican and we presumably would have been less isolationist. Yes. Exactly. Thank you. Excellent. Im dawn ewins kelly sxif a question about the security that surrounded him since he followed an savanted president. And id seen him in a film clip at the Smithsonian Museum of americas history jumping into the Wright Brothers plane without any provocation just boom. And im wondering did he drive people crazy with that . Yes. And it gets back to the seminal point of when you have no fear and you dont have any skeletons in your closet it makes you pretty powerful. Trust me that we have no record of him lying or cheating. He had nothing ever to cover. He never had paranoia of that kind. And then he developed this sort of darwinian philosophy. And its not that much different from Jonathan Edwards and the door opens youll go tumbling down, right . You know, its deaths upon any of us any minute. So live your life honorably and live it to the fullest. But his idea of fullest was trying anything new. So he went into a submarine and he went as we mentioned in aviation and he went catching coyotes and wolves 37 he went wolf catching, running off his horse, leaping off a running galloping horse grabbing the wolf. And if you put your fist in the wolfs mouth it turns totally passive. And this guy he went with, avp them alive jack abernathy, made business selling wolves and coyotes to ranchers and also to zoos in paris and berlin and the like. And t. R. Went with them. Nobody believed them that this happened. So he went and got a film crew. He liked the derringdo, whether it is aviation with that said, the big lover of our navy got seasick all the time. He really liked being on horseback. His ecosystem was really the prairie. The Great Savannah of america where he felt most at home with. But yes, that kind of he used to do a game where you walked from a to b, even if you walked straight, you had to climb a wall or go over from one point to another, he did all these strenuous Life Activities on constantly taking risk. And that was part of who he was. Helen horowitz. The big lover of conservation, however. I have also read i mean, i guess it was more stylish in those days than in our day. Was a huge slaughterer of wild animals. I mean well, its another good question. I mentioned to you his proclivity for hunting. Back in those days what he noticed and why he created to save all the big game, its you can do this as a jeopardy question. What president wrote a book while a sitting president as a trade book . First is Theodore Roosevelt, a book with mcmillan called the deer family called the deer of north america. He went to save the elk and created the wichita reserve for the Graham Reserve in oklahoma and another buffalo reserve in montana at the flathead reservation. The point being aristocratic hunters were in those days the original conservationists in many ways because you save this species to hunt the species. But secondarily, even if the American Museum of Natural History next door, you could go into the bird drawers and see all the carcasses. Before we had dna or Aerial Photography or bird banding even, the way that scientists would study animals is by collecting specimens. If you wanted to understand the eastern bluebird, you shoot 20 eastern bluebirds and studied variations and coloration and beak size and stuff. So he did not see himself as an animal slaughterer. He saw himself as a wildlife bile jiflt biologist man of science. With that said, his kill ratio in africa seems to me to have well succeeded what he needed to have shot for his museums. And it leads people to think of him as having a bloodlust. And so its not as much of a you know, look, when my book came out, somebody picked up this at the new york review of books. Brinkley talks about him being both a lifetime auduboner and a lifetime member of the National Rifle association. Today we think of them as, you know, those two dont often meet, but in t. R. They do. Another what if question. Seymour cohen. You answered the question he would have entered world war i earlier. And we know what happened when america ended. Would the war vended sooner . Would there have been less hostility to germany, no versailles treatment, and what would have been the course of the world as far as fascism rising . Id love your opinion. That is the ultimate what if question. Let me say this about that. Theodore roosevelt was beloved in europe almost as much as benjamin frafrnlg lynn had been before. His famous speech at the sorbonne was the one nixon used when he resigned in watergate. Damn the critics, its better to be in the arena and sweat and dust and all of that. And he spoke Foreign Languages very fluently. So hes very fluent in german and knew all about German Community as far as the german people. But he had a huge disdain for the kaiser and for the what he saw as germany run amok. But how things would have panned out differently if he got in sooner, if t. R. Was president and all that, i follow us on twitter at cspan history for information on the schedule of upcoming programs and to keep up with the latest history news. The puerto rican nationalist gang attempted the assassination of president truman, opening fire from the visitors gallery of the house of representatives. Five congressmen were hit. Albert bentley, michigan, was seriously injured. The gunman had the distinction of perpetrating a criminal outrage almost unique in americas history. It was the most violent act that ever occurred in the chamber. There were debates right after that. You cannot let that happen again. We have to wall off the visitors gallery with bullet proof glass so that this can never happen again. The more that the members talked and thought about that, they said it was a bad idea. This is the peoples house. The people cannot be walled off from the floor. The Capitol Building is a symbol. That makes it a target. They mentioned the british in 1814. There was a bombing during world war i. There was some shooting in 1954. What happened in 1971 was a bomb set off by the weather underground. There was another bombing by a senate spy in 1983 because of the reagan Foreign Policy. In 1988 there were two Capitol Police shot and killed. There have been those instances over time. And yet the capital has remained a remarkably open bit open building. Senate and house historians on the history of the house and senate, its leaders, characters, and prominent events tonight at 8 p. M. Eastern and the civic on cspan q a. Pacific on cspan q a. Each week we take you to distort places. Next we travel to philadelphia to learn about the museum of the American Revolution, located two blocks from independence hall, it is scheduled to open early in 2017. I pulled together a selection of objects from the presentation. Collection. To give you an idea of the highlights and the big storyline that we are telling in the museum. This is the first Newspaper Printing in english of the declaration of independence. So, while many viewers have seen the large broadsides published by the printers that would have been posted in Public Places this is probably the way that many colonial Americans First heard of the declaration, in philadelphia and then scattering out to the other colonies and potentially by august in print in london. Independence had already been declared on july 2 a 70s 1770. Celebrate the fourth because that is the day that the final version of the declaration of independence was adopted by congress. Tuesday, july 2, 1770. As you can see, just general descriptions of activity going on around the world and around the nation. More news things going on in providence newport, new haven and philadelphia. Literally the news we can imagine must have arrived very late in the day. They were at the end of the news column at the end of the classified and here on this day the Continental Congress declare the United Colonies free and independent states. That is the announcement of the birth of the birth of the United States. Moving on to the classifieds showing people that volume as much as the declaration, that really is the birth of the United States. The museum of the American Revolution will be of national will be a National Museum dedicated to advancing knowledge on the American Revolution. It will create a single place where americans can come and learn about the miracle of how this nation came into being and how this original great generation established our country. You are watching American History tv. All weekend, every weekend on cspan3. To join the conversation like us on facebook and cspan history. Like many of us, first families take occasion time. Like president s and first ladies, a good read can be the perfect companion for your summer journeys. Of what that her book than one that appears inside the personal life of every